By Nick Georgandis
TennisNow.com
Photo Credit: Robbie Mendelson
The Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova blew open a close match with seven straight winning games to cruise to a 6-3, 6-1 victory over China’s Na Li on Saturday to reach the Mutua Madrid Open final tomorrow.
In a first set of multiple breaks, Kvitova was the better player, achieving service breaks four times in six chances against Li, including the last three times the sixth-ranked player served.
Up 1-0 in the second set, Kvitova broke Li again, then went ahead and made the rout official by breaking her again despite nearly squandering a 30-0 lead, to go up 4-0.
Li finally broke Kvitova’s streak by taking the sixth game of the second set, but coming back from down 0-5 just doesn’t happen on this level of competition, and Kvitova easily took the next game to finish out the set and the match in 69 minutes.
In the pair’s first WTA meeting, the 18th-ranked Kvitova assured herself of a place in the Top 10 for the first time in her career. Win or lose on Sunday, she’ll surge to 10th in the rankings, and a victory will allow her to close within 123 points of No. 9 Maria Sharapova.
In her first official WTA action since Miami in late March, Kvitova has now reached her third final of the season. She was victorious in the first two, defeating Andrea Petkovic at Brisbane and Kim Clijsters in Paris. Overall, Kvitova is 3-1 in finals in her career.
Despite the loss, it was Li’s best showing since reaching the finals of the Australian Open more than three months ago. After starting the year 11-1, Li had struggled to a 1-5 mark with four opening-round losses since Feb. 14.
Falling short of the title at Madrid costs Li a chance to move up to No. 5 in the world, but she’s still firmly entrenched at sixth, having upped her season record to 15-7 in the process.